she was 94 year s old. if you don't recognize that name, it's probable you know her as dear abby. born in 1918 in sioux city, iowa. she wrote for her college newspaper before getting married and having two children. after age 37, she was hired by the "san francisco chronicle" to write an advice column. for the next three decades, she was the most powerful advice columnist in the country. her only real rival was her twin sister, ann landers. which brings us to tonight's number, 100 million, that's the daily readership of the syndicated dear abby column. in this day and age of online, face book, twitter, that's old school and that's impressive. she was not a typical newspaper writer. in the process, she built an

empire that includes books, games, and a show. she began cowriting with her daughter who took over the column full time. i love reading the column. you learn so much about people. you get inspired. sometimes you feel sad and sometimes you laugh aloud. to all of the other writers and fans, we all owe a big debt to dear abby. >> good evening, everyone. a big night on many fronts. a very scary, fluid situation in the northern african country of alger algeria. conflicting reports of americans held hostage there in the operation that took place today by algerian forces. and lance armstrong reporting he used performance enhancing drugs. we'll talk to people who said their lives were destroyed by armstrong's lives and ask what they'll be listening for. we begin keeping them honest with a story that is beyond bizarre. the mont manty te'o story.

notre dame where fairy tale endings are a birth right. he makes a tackle even though he said he just lost his girlfriend and his devoted girlfriend, lennay kekua. te'o would nearly win a heisman trophy. cue the credits, grab a hanky. call sports illustrated, put him on the cover. but like the feel-good hit of the summer, his story isn't real. the girlfriend didn't die. she didn't even exist. now they say he was the victim of a hoax, but keeping them honest, the record including his own statements cast doubt on the notion it's that simple and whether or not he was duped. virtually everyone who covered the sorie was. did they see what they wanted to see and not look closer than that. they saw the girlfriend and her storybook meeting with te'o. their stares got pleasantly

tangled, and then te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes. that's from the "south bend indiana tribune" describing how te'o and lennay met three years ago. the article quotes te'o's father saying he would travel to meet manti. it says nothing about any face-to-face encounters. quote, we maintained what i thought to be an athentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone and i grew to care deeply about her. so is brian te'o, his father, lying to the reporter, or is manti lying to his father about her visits. listen once again to te'o speaking to espn back on september 15th. he talks about being reunited with his grandmother and his girlfriend. >> i miss them, but i know i'll

see them again one day. >> not i'll finally meet her one day but i'll finally see her again. if he is a victim of the hoax that the relationship only existed online, why was he saying back then he had seen her at all? also we know he said he found out lennay was a fake on december 6th when he got a call from someone with her number and her voice who told him she wasn't dead. why does he wait until the 26th, 20 days later, to tul his coaches? notre dame investigates and gets a report on january 4th. why does the school wait until yesterday, after reporters run an expose, to go public? and getting back to manti. if he knew on december 6th, he had been scammed, why two days later did he once again talk about the girlfriend he is now supposed to know is fake as if she was real. listen. >> i don't like cancer at all. cancer, i lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend

to cancer. >> again, he make that statement two days after he was supposedly informed of the hoax. did he not understand, was he confused, embarrassed or was he in on and and trying to hide it. here's what we know from gary tuchman. >> you didn't have to be a big cleenl football fan hao hop on the manti te'o bandwagon this year. he nearly won the heisman trophy. hard hitting, but soft spoken and in love with a girlfriend he said he met three years ago after a game. listen to how he described her to e spn. >> i see the most beautiful girl i ever met, not because of her physical beauty, but the beauty of her character, and who she is. she was just that person that i turned to. >> in the same interview, te'o talked about learning that his girlfriend, lennay kekua, had died from leukemia. >> i cried. i yelled.

i never felt that way before. six hours ago, i found out my grandma passed away. you take, you know, the love of my life. last thing she said to me was, i love you. >> te'o's grandmother did indeed pass away. but the woman he described as the most beautiful girl he had ever met, the love of his life, never died. she also never lived. te'o's version of the story goes like this. he says he met lennay in 2009 after a football game at stanford. he described her as being his soul mate. they were together when they could me, he would say. te'o's father also declared the couple spent time together in hawaii. te'o said his grandmother died on september 11th and his girlfriend a few hours later. on september 22nd, he said his girlfriend was buried, but he played against michigan. after the victory, the coach

honored the memory of te'o's girlfriend with the game ball. >> i would like manti to have the ball to take back to hawaii to her. >> two months later, he told an interviewer this. >> when i lost my girlfriend and my grandmother, that was possibly the hardest time of my life. to see the notre dame community just rally around one person, you know, not the team, just a certain individual, and to see the whole stadium both notre dame and michigan fans wearing leis. i looked up and said, oh, heavenly father, you're the man. like, four years ago, i couldn't see this. now you fight on. national championships, and now i'm sitting here, about to play michigan. after learning two of the people -- two women whom i truly love. >> then on december 6th, less than three months after lunay supposedly died, his phone rings, on the other end, it sounds like lennay, who is

supposed to be dead. she says, i'm not dead. it was all a hoax. then two days later, he talks about lennay as if he never got the call? >> i don't like cancer. i lost my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. >> he tells notre dame his version of events. university officials believe him but say nothing publicly until this week. >> mantdi was the victim of that hoax. manti is the victim of that hoax. and he will carry that with him for a while. >> but many are now wondering why the university and te'o stayed silent for so long. was it to preserve the integrity of an investigation or to preserve an inspirational myth in the lead-up to the national championship game? >> gary tuchman joins me now. where is te'o right now? do you know what he's doing? >> te'o is right across the street from me right now, anderson, in braytonten, florida. this is the sports training facility. he's with 35 college players

right now. they're training for the very important nfl combine, which is held next month in indianapolis. that's the event where nfl coaches and scouts go and decide who they're going to draft in april. te'o is inside there. he's had every chance to talk today. he knows there's media across the street. he's made the conscious decision not to talk, at least yet. a truly bizarre story. >> gary tuchman, appreciate all the latest. plenty to talk about now with tim burke who broke the story on deadspin. also michael rosenberg. let's start with what we know. we haven't heard from him today. we know notre dame is still sticking by its claim he was the victim of the scammer or an online identity desepshz. what we don't know seems endless at this point. have you been able to fill in any blanks since we spoke last night? >> we have a couple sort of fill in the blanks. with what we have been exposed to through journalists who have sort of shared their process in reporting the stories we have now shown to be bunk, we know at least where some of those words

were coming from. we know that brian te'o, manti's dad, was the source of that origin story, if you will, the 2009 meeting at stanford. so it sort of shifts where attention goes to the answers we want. we started off wanting to know when manti found out. now we want to know who came up with that story because that's really important. that's part of the romance here. and we have all been -- once you introduce this story of manti and lennay with that scene, you know, it is a lens through which we view the rest of their tragic story. those are the answers we really want. i suspect if manti puts out a conversation which he was rumored to have one scheduled with jeremy schacter at espn that was canceled. i have a feeling he's not going

to answer that question for us. >> do we know now who is running this hoax? whether or not manti was in on it, who the other players are? >> well, our original reporting said it was this tuiasosopo character and two of his cousins. we weren't told what they names were. when we asked if one was female if he was going to be using this to hoax manti te'o, we were told yes. we believe there were three people who were part of that. we know that tuiasosopo, the lennay kakua portrayal online has gone an for a long time. we have heard alleged rumors from an uncle of the tuiasosopo's who said he has done this leukemia scam other times before and in other places. he was on a local radio show,

and we can't really prove it was actually one of his uncles. but we're hearing laults of these stories from other people who know of this, you know, this get sick from leukemia and die and they wonder if they had designed game donations or anything like that. we're hearing more and more this guy has been doing this for long time. >> i know you want to be very clear. you don't know what happened. none of us really know what has happened, i guess, until manti te'o speaks or there's. more information that comes forward. in your gut, do you think he was a victim, he wasn't a victim inor does the truth lie somewhere in between? >> it's somewhere in between. and congrats on outstanding work on the story. there is no reasonable explanation to any of this. it's all bizarre. the question is among the bizarre possibilities, what is the most reasonable. it seems more likely to me that maybe three people tricked manti te'o, duped him into believing

this girl existed and then he exaggerated the relationship for whatever reason, whether it was publicity or it got out of hand or something else. that strikes me as more reasonable than him being in on it and knows he was fictional and fooling his entire team for a long period of time and starting it two years ago. i find it difficult to believe, but let's face it, it's all difficult to believe. >> also, michael, i don't understand if on december 6th he gets this call from her phone or a number he associated with her, and it's her voice saying it was a hoax, i'm not dead, and i'm not, you know, lennay, then why two days later does he volunteer on a panel that his girlfriend has died? >> well, there is certainly no good explanation for that. i think if he did exaggerate the relationship and did believe she was real, all of a sudden, among other things he's thinking, what have i done. this person wasn't real, and you cover for yourself. you can turn around and say why

would he turn around and tell officials this was all a hoax if nobody had reason to suspect it before, and why would he say he wasn't involved? wouldn't the co-conspirator be able to point to a bunch of evidence that he was in on it? so, the beauty of the story and the reason so many people are talking about it is it's still a mystery even after it's out there and there's enough evidence on either side to make you believe what you want to believe. >> he waited 20 days to talk to university officials. i read that he wanted to tell his parents face-to-face, which again, a lot of it just doesn't seem to add up. tim, do you think -- if he didn't talk to espn today, do you think he actually will do an interview at some point, or do you think he can ride this out or will try to ride it out? >> i hope for his sake he does try to ride it out. i don't think there's a single thing he can say right now that will improve his situation. he can either create new

questions for us to ask, give us more evidence to work against him, or make him sound like even more of a naive, gullible person than he already had in the previous statement. his best bet, if i were his publicist, to answer no comment to every question about lennay kakua for the rest of his career. >> tim, if you hadn't broken the story, would we even go about this? because the university didn't come forward. he hadn't come forward. is there any evidence they had ever intended to come forward? >> yahoo released somebody today that said the university wanted to release news about it on monday and te'o and his family stepped in and told them not to. and that, you know, espn claims they had been working on this for a considerable amount of time. and that they could have been close to published. so it's very convenient that

both notre dame says they have the private investigation and espn, oh, yeah, we knee all about that after we published our story, but if you take them at face value, sure. as we illustrated in some posts today on deadspin.com, there are so many contradictory statements in the story that as people would talk about manti te'o and the draft, they would go back to the stories and eventually somebody, i think, would have found them. >> tim burke, i appreciate it. again, you guys broke the story. michael rosenberg, appreciate you joining us. thank you very much. let us know what you think. follow me on twitter at anderson cooper. does this make any sense to you? is there an explanation. let me know what you think sdploo up next, a filmmaker who fell for a woman online. his experience became the movie "catfish." there's now a series on mtv. i'll ask the filmmaker whether he thinks manlti te'o got c catfished next. at 1:45, the aflac duck was brought in

with multiple lacerations to the wing and a fractured beak. surgery was successful, but he will be in a cast until it is fully healed, possibly several months. so, if the duck isn't able to work, how will he pay for his living expenses? aflac. like his rent and car payments? aflac. what about gas and groceries? aflac. cell phone? aflac, but i doubt he'll be using his phone for quite a while cause like i said, he has a fractured beak. [ male announcer ] send the aflac duck a get-well card at getwellduck.com.

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what is your take on it? >> well, i have to say, it's very hard to say what exactly to make of it. as a journalist, what it seems to me is that what we have here is a story that starts as a narrative, a single news story and becomes taken as gospel and then spirals out of control. like for example, you have a cake with seven layers of frosting and the top layer is the frosting. and the second story is maybe an espn story that cites the story, and each time you get farther away from the truth, and meanwhile, nobody goes back to the cake. >> instead of doing fact checking back to the source, they're looking at other articles saying if there's three other articles all of which have the spin of the story, they led it slide? >> absolutely. the best thing about the internet for journalists is all of the information is available at your fingertips. the worst thing is the same thing. here you have journalists who

may or may not have copy and pasted without taking the 35 or 45 minutes it would have taken to call stanford and say was there a lennay kekua who went there. did you ever bury a lennay kekua? nobody took the time to do that because they accepted it was true. >> i heard one reporter who said they had asked for photographs of her from him, and he said her family doesn't want to do that. they don't want to be contacted. and the reporter backed off. didn't want to upset the possibility of not doing an interview. if manti doesn't talk, it really then becomes a story about the guy who allegedly perpetrated this and whether or not he talks. >> look, if what is in the deadspin story is true, then the person that is really going to have the answers is tuiasosopo. i have not seen that anybody has been able to contact him. we have a report that maybe an uncle was on a talk show but we don't really know. if tim is right and manti te'o's

publisher says say no comment for the rest of his career, we may never know. and he used it as the picture, if that's the case, he may have to talk to the police. he may resurface, and it seems like the answers are going to come from him, not te'o. >> it seem like there have to be other people in his circle, if there were more than one person involved with this, they would also be able to talk at some point. >> they would be able to, but it's an open question whether they would. whether they will circle the wagon to protect this point. at this ponlt, we don't even know where this person is, we don't know bl he's now in hiding. we don't know anything. as journalists, we really did drop the ball on the storae it's incumbent upon us to find this guy and ask questions. >> strange gday. if mant i te'o was a victim of

hoax, there's a name for it, catfished. boy meets girl online, falls in love, suspects she may not be who she says she would be. >> your voice is not what i expected. you must be awesome, from facebook. megan is a dancer. she sings. >> this is her mom. >> wow, she's hot. >> the facebook family. that's what we call them. we drive up to megan's farm in michigan. >> this is it. just pull up. >> you want to drive in to the driveway? >> yeah. >> are you crazy? >> that's nate. he and max produce "catfish" which explores dating in the digital world. we spoke earlier tonight. so, you have a lot of experience in this realm. you yourself were duped. that's wt the original movie

"catfish" was about. are you giving manti te'o the benefit of the doubt on this? do you believe him? you know firsthand online dating scams happen. what do you think? >> i'm simply extending somewhat of an olive branch to manti te'o merely to say that whatever we discover to be the truth, i have been through this sort of thing. i have had my heart broken, sort of publicly. i have been embarrassed on a global scale. so if in fact it's true and he was catfished, i want him to know that i understand. and more importantly, that i would like to help. whether that's in potentially getting to the bottom of all this and discovering the truth or merely offering him some advice on best ways to deal with this strange and unusual situation. >> max, i'm curious to know what you think about this because new information has been coming out even since yesterday, and one of

the things is that apparently manti te'o after he got a call from a number which he associated with his allegedly dead girlfriend, from that number, he then did an interview several days later in which he again talked about the death of his girlfriend, even though he had already apparently had been made aware that there was some kind of a hoax going on, according to his own story, so the question is why is he continuing to do interviews talking about his dead girlfriend if he had already been informed she wasn't. i'm just curious, what do you believe? >> it's hard to say. there are obviously a lot of holes in the story and things that don't add up. i think just to be safe, i err on the side of believing that manti te'o was duped. and that even if he received a suspicious phone call from that number, which would definitely kind of alarm anyone, he stuck

to the story he believed to be true. >> here's the other thing i don't understand, and you guys have a lot more experience in this realm than i do, certainly, but i also don't understand, he gave multiple interviews talking about this woman, and never saying that he had never met her, because you would think that that would actually be part of the story. if you had somebody -- i mean, in the movie "catfish" you talked a lot about having not met this person and wanting to meet this person. in all of these interviews he gave over the course of their relationship, after her death, he never said, the most tragic thing was i never even saw her face-to-face. you would think if that was part of the narrative, why wouldn't he have mentioned it? >> i think once you establish yourself as in a relationship with someone publicly, and it's someone you're dating online, there is a little bit of a stig stigma, and something of an embarrassment factor to admitting you are in fact in a committ relationship with someone you have never met.

>> there's definitely a lot of secrecy involved, which is offtimes the way things become so seriously so quickly between two people because there aren't other people around to raise the flags. >> it's fascinating, max and joseph, i appreciate you talking about it. >> thank you. >> we're going to talk to new york mayor bloomberg. does he agree with those who say nothing president obama proposed would have stopped the newtown tragedy? his answer might surprise you, ahead. fight back fast with tum. calcium-rich tums starts working so fast you'll forget you had heartburn. ♪ tum tum tum tum tums you'll forget you had heartburn. so if ydead battery,t tire, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geico's emergency roadside assistance is there 24/7. oh dear, i got a flat tire. hmmm. uh... yeah, can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here.

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tonight, in raw politics. gun control is again front and center at the annual conference of mayors, joe biden lobbied for the white house's plan to prevent gun violence. he said the need is urgent and called for action. >> i know we don't have absolute unanimity in this ballroom nor do we in any ballroom, but we all know, everyone acknowledges we have to do something. we have to act. and i hope we're all agreeing there's a need to respond to the carnage on our streets and in our schools. >> president obama laid out a number of proposals and steps he's has taken on gun control.

few republicans are outright hostile to his plans with one texas congressman threatening executive impeachment. the nra has denounced the proposals, but they're taking heat over an ad they launched about president obama's daughters and the security they have at their school. the white house called the repugnant and cowardly. that's for you to decide. they blasted the nra. here's what he said. >> to talk about the president's children or any public officer's children who have not by their own choice but by requirement to have protection, and to use that somehow, to try to make a political point, i think is reprehensible. >> new york mayor michael bloomberg has been pushing for stricter gun laws for years. i spoke to him earlier. first of all, your impressions

of the president's proposals on gun control. are you happy with them? >> you're never going to have everything you want. but i thought it was comprehensive. it outlined he can do by executive order and it outlined things he has got to with help from the vice president and help from lots of other people, convince congress to do. two kinds of problems and he address both of them. >> you said earlier today, there are some things he's not going to get legislation on. he's not going to be able to get through. >> i think some things are tougher than others. there's a general consensus from the country that background checks before you buy a gun should apply to everyone. right now, it applies only to gun shows. i'm sorry, to gun dealers. >> licensed dealers. >> right, but most people would be in favor, and that's easier for congress to get done. you have to explain it to them, they have got to hear from their constituents, and i think they will do that rather easily, compared to getting rid of assault weapons. that is a tougher sell.

and that's what we really have to work on. i'm optimistic, but it's tougher. >> there is a school of thought of why try to go for so much? why not go for something that has so much support, like background checks rather than try to throw in assault weapons as well? >> there are lives involved here. if you can stop -- if you can save one life, isn't that worth trying? and i always thought you should address issues when they're on the public's conscience, when they're covered by the press, and you should try to do a complete job so you don't have to come back again and again and again for the same thing. >> marco rubio was quoted saying nothing that the president is proposing would have stopped the massacre at sandy hook. do you agree? >> that's probably true. a woman had guns, i don't know if she went through a background check, but her son certainly didn't. he took his mother pf's guns an

killed people. that doesn't mean having fewer guns around isn't a bad idea. there are people who run through traffic lights, does that mean we should get rid of traffic lights? no, in macrosense, they work. if you have fruer guns, things are better. in new york state, we have strong gun laws. we have fewer guns on the streets. our murder rate is one of the lowest murder rates of any big city. >> newt gingrich brought this up on the show the other day. you look at a city like chicago that has tough gun legislation and a high murder rate. >> new york has tough gun legislation and a low murder rate. it's not a panacea for everything. you have to have a good police department, have it well led, diversified, deploy it where the problems are, aggressive with the kids who are most likely to carry guns to make sure they think they're going to be stopped and if they have a gun on them, they'll be arrested. that keeps them from carrying

guns. otherwise it's a mauch oo thing. this is a important step. fewer guns means fewer murderers. fewer guns means fewer suicides. it means you and your children are safer. >> what do you think of the nra, how they have been fighting this? >> i don't think their strategy makes any sense at all. the other day, to bring in the president's kids was just bad pr. it was also an outrage, it really was. you don't do that. they made a big deal back, a few days after the connecticut shooting, that the cause of all this wasn't guns. it was the video games that are so violent. and one month later, they came up with their own video game, which was violent. i mean, you know, you're shooting at the shape of a coffin, for goodness sakes. what are we trying to teach our kids? the original thing that happened would be right on that. these games, i think, are teaching your kids, you know, you hit a button.

you can blow somebody away. you hit the reset button and they come back. that's not the real world. i know a lot of parent who don't let their kids play these games, but to have the nra criticize, blame it on them and then do their own is ridiculous. >> they say more security in schools. security in every school. is that something -- >> you really want your kids to go to school in an armed camp? number one. number two, more guns means more murders. how do you know some kid doesn't get the gun into school. bringing guns into school where there are a bunch of kids isn't a smart thing to do. i have said to our police officers, don't take your guns home at night. >> the problem isn't just republicans in congress who are opposed to this. there are a lot of democrats who are opposed. >> you go gak in the foirs two years of the obama administration. the democrats have the white house, the senate and congress, and they did nothing. i blame both of them, and i went

during the presidential campaign, i pointed out that mitt romney had champions an assault weapon ban in massachusetts when he was governor, signed the bill, got it passed and signed it. president obama, when he was running four years ago, he championed an assault weapons ban, said he would try to get it in if he got elected, and neither did anything. i crit kzed both of them. this is not a partisan thing. somehow or another, connecticut children, you know, suburban, nice, normal ro an rockwell kin image in your mind. somehow or other, that has touched the american public's heart. >> mr. mayor, thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> still ahead, the interview people have been waiting for for decades. what did lange armstrong say to oprah winfrey, and will he apologize to the millions of people whose lives he tore apart.

we'll ask what they'll be looking for. ♪ [ male announcer ] end your long week... with a weekend getaway. save up to forty percent on all weekend hotel stays. book by january thirty first at hiltonanyweekend.com.

tonight, lance armstrong will speak for the first time publicly since his fall from grace. his interview with oprah winfrey was taped a few days ago. today, the olympic committee has stripped him of the bronze medal he won in sydney. he has already been stripped of his seven tour de france titles and banned from cycling.

the fallout of a doping controversy that pult him in the center of the controversy. he's expected to have admitted to doping and lied about it after years of flat-out deniade. he apologized to the staff of live strong. betsy and her husband think they deserve apologies as well. they said they told the truth and they felt armstrong's wrath. i spoke to the author of "the secret race." is there anything lance armstrong can say tonight that will make you forgive him? >> well, this is the thing, forgiveness isn't a switch. it really is a process. there has been so much damage done to us personally. we do remember the good times we had with lance, but when somebody tries to destroy your livelihood, tries to destroy your reputation for a decade,

it's really difficult. and if lance will come right out and admit to the hospital room, that's a first step. >> admit to the hospital room, what do you mean? >> the hospital incident. my husband and were visiting him when he was recovering from cancer in october 1996. he had a scheduled visit with doctors and a couple of the doctors, two of the doctors came into a conference room where we were there. with some other friends of lance's, franky and i and lance, and asked a few banal questions and then, boom, have you ever used any performance enhancing drugs. and lance rattled off epo, cortisone, steroids, testosterone, growth hormones. >> do you believe he is going to say, because at the time, he indicted he may not say that he was the guy in charge of this, that he was the guy running the operation. he was just one of, you know, many teammates who did this. can you see a scenario where he

would try to make that claim? >> the thing with lance is he was co-owner of the team. he decided who was hired, who was fired, who got paid what. for example, when franky was fired in 2000, he rode the tour clean, refused to get on a comprehensive doping program seeing the doctor, he was fired from the team. for lance to say he wasn't the ring leader, there wasn't one other cyclist who owned the team like he did. >> and no one had the power he had. what are your anticipating hearing tonight? what are you going to be listening for? >> two things. first, i'm going to be listening for truth. and the truth is really in the details. they put blood bags underneath dog kennels and smuggled them into the tour. they did transfusions on the bus. they hired a gardner to follow the bus on a motorcycle and deliver the epo. this whole world exists. i wonder who lance who was the most powerful guy economically,

the most connected guy, the most powerful guy, the wealthiest guy, is going to come clean in the details. to me, that's number one. number two is what is he going to say to betsy, to greg, to tyler hamilton. people who he tried to destroy. lance is a very powerful guy, and he spent many years trying to hide people whose only crime was really telling the truth. travis was the guy who got the report together and is the president of the organization that is effectively banning lance. they had a meeting to see if they could come to some agreement where lance would cooperate. the meeting ended very poorly with lance walking out and saying you don't hold the keys to my redemption, i do. that's when the oprah engine started churning. >> what are you going to be listening for? >> i would like for him to admit that the incident happened. i would like the question to be asked, did it happen? the problem is presumably there are people who went before the grand jury and said it didn't. if lance now says it did, the same people who are protecting

him can get in trouble. lance is going to have to go and talk to usada, which is something that is going to be extremely difficult for him. he's going to have to tell them the detail of everything. because there is no way he did this on his own. it was way too big. >> he's going to have to testify against other people? >> that's right. >> and point the finger at other people? >> that's right. this is bigger than lance. it's funny, we get wrapped up in the lance/oprah from raw. but the story is bigger than lance. it's good that the truth is coming out. it's basically a good thing there will be truth and transparency in the sport. the problem here is a cultural one, really. this was a very, very dirty culture. lance came along in a perfectly good storm, and built it into an empire. >> do you think he can be completely honest? >> i think this is the first step in trying to. i think being completely honest

is an absolutely new concept to him, and he's doing it in such a public manner. okay, sure, there's a reason why he chose oprah and not to go on "60 minutes." that in and of itself speaks volumes. it's the first step. like i said, if he drops the ball, he's going to be called on it and then nobody is going to believe him. >> it's going to be a fascinating night, the beginning of two nights. betsy and daniel, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> we're going to be live at 10:00, too, so after the interview is done, join us. we'll be talking about it with betsy and a whole panel of folks who have been faollowing lance for a long time. >> we'll tell you about a gas plan where they kidnap hostages, some of them americans. latest developments ahead. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 is your old 401k just hanging around?

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c-max says wheeee. which is what you get, don't you see? cause c-max has lots more horsepower than prius v, a hybrid that c-max also bests in mpg. say hi to the all-new 47 combined mpg c-max hybrid. time to algeria today, an effort to free hostages, including americans held by islamic militants. some americans have been freed and are out of the country, but others are still unaccounted for. algerians and foreign workers were taken hostage at a gas plant, and tonight, we're getting word about what the hostages have been going through. the brother of an irish hostage who escaped said his brother was forced to sleep with explosives d tied around his neck at night.

he said his brother escaped when they bombed the convoy. the jeep his brother was in crashed and he survived and he was able to make a break for it. there are casualties, although the exact number frankly isn't known. what we do know is it's not over. we're joined now with the latest. this has been a fluid story all day long. what is the latest? what are you hearing? >> the latest, anderson, is it's not over. they apparently have taken some type of break, they be the algerian military, for the night, but there, a senior u.s. official tells us there are still terrorists and still hostages. it's not clear exactly how many people might have been -- might have escaped, might have been killed. we understand from defense secretary panetta there were probably about seven or eight americans initially, and some, as you said, have gotten out. they talked to their families,

but it is still really unclear what has happened to nem. >> it surprises me there's so little information. early this morning, you know, this raid had already begun. so the fact that information has been so slow to come out surprises me, i guess because it's a remote region. did the algerians give the u.s. a heads up before they conducted the raid, do we know? >> they did not. that's what we're told by u.s. officials, they didn't. that's one of the growing frustrations. everyone understands, of course, it was a very difficult operation and remains a difficult operation, but without that heads up, the u.s. and i have been talking to some european countries that are expressing some frustration with a lack of information, conflicting information, not enough information on the u.s. hostages. so that is saproblem. >> we're also learning from defense officials, the u.s. is increasing its role in the conflict in mali. how so, because the french were the ones on the ground?

>> the french are positioned there because they do have bases and they have a history in algeria. the united states has now agreed they will help with air lifts. that means bringing in french troops into, not necessarily directly into mali, but into some of the surrounding areas. right now in mali, they have -- it's difficult to get everyone who needs to get in there. there will be, we understand, some 2,500 french forces. there are some african forces that are going to go in, but the french still want other things. they want some refueling capability and some intelligence and the u.s. is talking about that right now. >> all right, jill, appreciate the update. i want to get you caught up on some of the other stories we're following. >> fbi director robert mueller met with libyan officials in tripoli about the deadly attack at the u.s. consulate in benghazi last september. a lawense forcement official said there has been significant progress in the investigation

and charges against suspects are expected. >> stocks surging on wall street. the s & p closed at a five-year high. the dow just missed that mark. pauline philips, better known as the original dear abby columnist has died after boug battling alzheimer's disease. her daughter took over the column full time in 2002. she was 94. >> got to see this one, in slidell, louisiana, police say a burglar forgot his mask and decided to improvise by putting a bucket over his head. problem is he broke into a seafood business where he used to work and part of his face was captured on the surveillance cameras. >> you can't see out of a bucket. >> coming up, dry legs, maybe? we found the genes for you. the ridiculist is next. ♪

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time for the ridiculist. tonight, i have two words for you, moisturizing jeans. wrangler is coming out with jeans infused with natural oils and butters to protect your legs from, according to vogue uk, the dehydrating effects of denim. why not? skinny jeans, acid washed jeans, why not oily, buttery jeans? they come in three types, aloe vera, olive extract, and smooth legs. and yes, there is a promotional video. >> when you first put them on,

it's cool like aloe vera. cooler than regular jeans. >> the denim spa jeans will be on sale online later this month. vogue uk said you'll also be able to buy a spray that will last up to 95 wears. listen, i gotta say, this doesn't really sound like my thing. i'm pretty particular about my jeans. >> i wear a t-shirt and -- gray or white, same pair of jeans, literally the same pair of jeans every day. >> also interesting. >> because they have these jeans you don't have to wash now, or so they say. you know what i mean? no, it's true. it's true. the person says to me, like, don't wash them for a long time. meaning like a week. no, no, no. they mean like six months. luckily for me, no one noticed that moment on my daytime talkshow. >> let's talk about jeans because this is nasty. anderson cooper, as you know,

was sort of outed. >> he admitted that he never washes his jeans. >> he was cohosting with stacey london, and she took his jeans and took them to get them tested at a lab. they found out there were biohazardous materials on them. >> i read something about you, that you wear the same jeans every day, you never wash them. you're very particular. >> what? >> when you do decide to wash the dirty denment, what is your -- >> this is getting blown out of proportion? >> i felt very lonely on "the view." you know you have made it when barbara walters casually slides away from you. i was not aware that people were suffering from the dehydrating effects of denim. but they feel the need, a very esoteric need, but a ne just the same, kind of like another type of jean from snl. >> mom jeans fit